15. Last Minute Wet Sound Check Turned Out to be a Bad Idea
Scottish guitarist Leslie Harvey (1944 – 1972) was the brother of 1970s glam rocker Alex Harvey. Leslie played for a number of bands in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most notably the blues rock band Stone the Crows, which he had co-founded in 1969. Born in Glasgow, Leslie’s career was full of mishaps and misfortunes, culminating with the final one that took his life. He had been asked to join The Animals in the 1960s, but he turned down the opportunity in order to stay with his brother’s band. The Animals went on to become superstars, with hits that became classics such as House of the Rising Sun, We Gotta Get Out of This Place, and Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. The gig with his brother’s band did not work out, so Leslie joined another band, Blues Council.
However, soon after making their first album, the band’s tour van crashed, killing its lead vocalist and bassist, and the survivors split. In 1969, Harvey co-founded Stone the Crows, which steadily climbed the rock ladder. By 1972, fresh off a successful 1971 album, Teenage Kicks, and managed by Led Zepplin’s legendary Peter Grant, Leslie and his band were about to break out. Then on May 3rd, 1972, the band was preparing for a show before a crowd in Swansea, Wales, when Leslie’s bad luck struck one last time. It was a rainy day, with puddles on the stage, when the unfortunate guitarist made a last-minute sound check while tuning his guitar, and came in contact with a poorly grounded microphone. Touching the microphone with wet hands, Leslie Harvey was electrocuted to death, live onstage before thousands of horrified onlookers.
